This is a succulent named Echeveria at the home of Heather Callaghan in Encinitas.
— Eduardo Contreras / UNION-TRIBUNE

Creating a screen

Here is a sampling of low-water, low-maintenance plants for an informal screen:

• California wax myrtle, Morella californica

• Purple flowering bottlebrush, Callistemon ‘Mauve Mist’

• Silky net bush, Calothamnus villosus

• Cane’s bottlebrush, Callistemon ‘Cane’s hybrid’

• Strawberry tree, Arbutus sp

• Cone bush, Leucadendron sp

• Hotlips sage, Salvia x microphylla ‘Hotlips’

• Variegated silver grass, Miscanthus sp

• Jacaranda

• Aloe

• Aeonium, both green and the bronze ‘Zwartkopf’

• Dwarf coral tree, Erythrina sp

• South African daisy, Arctotis hybrids

• Mexican tulip poppy, Hunnemannia fumariifolia

• Pelargonium ‘Fairy Cascades’

• Honey Granite Myrtle, Melaleuca elliptica

• Hairpin banksia, Banksia spinulosa

• Honeybush, Melianthus major

• Chinese pistache, Pistacia chinensis

When Maury and Heather Callaghan moved to their newly built Olivenhain home in 2001, they carpeted the two-thirds-acre lot in sod. The New Zealand natives had lived all over the world, most recently in Kentucky where they had a large, woodland garden. Both had gardened with their parents as children. As adults, however, Maury’s business had taken them around the world, mostly where there wasn’t much opportunity for gardening, until they landed in Kentucky, where Heather became a Master Gardener.

After arriving in Southern California, Heather says, she simply re-created what she knew: expanses of lawn and beds of perennials such as Ageratum, foamflowers (Tiarella) and coral bells (Heuchera). These plants do beautifully in shady, woodland gardens with rich, moist soils. The Callaghan’s property, however, is sunny with sandy, dry soil and occasional patches of poorly-draining clay.

All that grass was wonderful for the couple’s Australian shepherds, who chase Frisbees and tennis balls. Soon, however, Heather started looking around. She was attracted to a neighbor’s garden that was filled with textural, colorful, low-water plants, and no lawn.

In addition to Heather’s growing gardening awareness, the couple felt a pressing need for privacy. In an unusual configuration, the rear of the Callaghan’s property slopes down to a street that is a popular promenade for the neighborhood. Pedestrians, horses, bicycles and strollers start early in the morning while the Callaghans sit on their patio with coffee and the newspaper.

The owner of the neighboring garden that caught Heather’s eye introduced her to Scott Spencer, a Fallbrook garden designer who had helped create that garden. Within a few months, Spencer was hard at work for the Callaghans.

As Spencer surveyed the property, he identified the challenges: screen a house perched uphill from the street, and create a garden that is beautiful from both the home and the street.

Spencer started by mounding 140 yards of imported soil over a 20-foot-wide strip of formerly flat land on the street side of the back fence.

The roughly 6-foot-tall mounds went a long way toward creating a screen. The rest of the job was accomplished by the low-water trees and shrubs, most from Australia, South Africa and California (see list of plants at right).

When it came to plants, Spencer says, “We (he and Heather) both picked plants.” Rather than drawing out a plan, Spencer works with clients to understand their likes and desires, then arrives with a truck full of plants. “I told Heather the assets and liabilities of each plant and how I wanted to use them, ” he explains, “She gave the yea or nay. If she didn’t like it, I didn’t use it.”